I understand DI fellows not knowing anything about science, because none of them are scientists.

I fail to understand how that collection of lawyers makes so many legal errors.

For instance, the Discovery Institute, via the American Freedom Alliance, organized a screening of ‘Darwins Dilemma’ at the California Science Center. But a couple of days ago, CSC canceled the screening, citing contract violations.

Alliance president Avi Davis said the cancellation had nothing to do with contract issues, but rather a press release touting the film issued a few days ago by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based “intelligent design” think tank.

The institute’s release announced that some of its fellows were featured in the film to be screened at a location they described as the “Smithsonian Institution’s west coast affiliate.” John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said he understands officials at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History pressured the CSC to cancel the film.

“I think this is an outrageous example of censorship and ideological discrimination,” West said. “The thing about a contractual dispute is just a pretext and it’s bogus. This really should be disturbing to anyone who believes in free speech.”

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS:
It is required that the Event Services Office approve, for technical and factual accuracy, all promotional materials mentioning the California Science Center produced for your event (including invitations, programs, press releases, etc.) prior to printing or broadcast. Please allow sufficient time for this approval.

Apparently, the DI is once again above silly ‘laws’ and ‘contracts’ us plebeians are expected to follow, thus they took it upon themselves to issue press releases without CSCs approval, violating the terms of CSCs contract.

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The debate over Darwin will
come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution’s west coast affiliate premieres Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, a new intelligent design film which challenges Darwinian evolution. To view a trailer and clips from the film, please visit http://www.darwinsdilemma.org.

This pretty blatantly makes it look like this is a museum sponsored event. It says that the museum is doing the premiering.

Of course, we also have to realize that the DI has an incentive to ignore things like contracts. Remember, the DI’s only real goal is cultural warfare. They can make a bigger stink if their event gets cancelled by evil secularists than if it is actually allowed to happen.

Their quasi-legalistical goons serve exactly the same purpose as their quasi-scientifical goons: to be credible-sounding public whiners. So long as their lawyers can manage to keep the DI from actually being sued, their legal competence is irrelevant.

I’m not sure the CSC would have actually canceled this had it been a single press release from a harmless group. The ID element may have well gone into it. And having a press release that is actively misleading about the CSC’s role? Yeah, of course they are going to get fried. One thing that the ID movement consistently fails to understand is that if you are going to be doing anything controversial for any purpose you need to get all your details correct because people will use your mistakes against you. This would seem common sense to me but for some reason they don’t get it. I don’t know if that’s because the DI is just incompetent or because they’d rather feel persecuted.

It may help to be reminded of the Dover Pa ruling on Di where a conservative Bush appointed Federal Judge called the DI people dishonest and guilt of perjury. He also ruled that DI is a religious belief and had not part of Science education. PPS has a documentary on the trial that is worth watching.